Volunteers trim marijuana plants at Organic Solutions of the Desert, a Palm Springs medical marijuana operation, in May 2015. California could become the latest state to legalize recreation marijuana use if a proposed initiative qualifies for the 2016 ballot.

A worker at Organic Solutions of the Desert in Palm Springs helps a client in May 2015. Next year, California voters could decide whether to legalize marijuana for recreational use.

Supporters of legal marijuana in California might be closer than ever to their goal.

Next year, the Golden State could join the District of Columbia, Colorado, Oregon, Washington state and Alaska in allowing recreational use of marijuana under certain conditions. At least 18 legalization ballot measures have been submitted to the California secretary of state.

And that’s the problem for supporters. If more than one measure qualifies, it could confuse voters and hurt a grassroots effort that’s gained momentum in recent years.

To that end, legalization advocates are rallying around a measure backed by billionaire entrepreneur and former Facebook president Sean Parker. The Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act, or AUMA, has the backing of pro-marijuana activists and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has said the initiative closely follows the recommendations of a blue-ribbon panel he formed to develop guidelines for marijuana sale and cultivation in California.

The use of marijuana for medicinal purposes has been legal in California since voters approved Prop. 215 in 1996, and state lawmakers recently passed a new regulatory scheme for medical marijuana. But the push to decriminalize it suffered a setback when voters rejected Prop. 19 in 2010.

The prospects for legalization are favorable in 2016, said Jack Pitney, a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College. A Public Policy Institute of California poll conducted in March showed support for legalization at its highest point — 53 percent — since the poll started asking about the topic in 2010, although a more recent poll found that legalization was not a top concern for many.

Voters in 2016 will likely be more liberal and Democratic than in 2014, which boosts the chances for a legalization ballot measure, Pitney said.

“But having more than one measure on the ballot could be a problem, especially if either is legally flawed or vulnerable to attack,” he said. “Voters might just say no to all of them, just to be safe.”

‘SO MANY EGOS’

AUMA is seen as having the best shot of getting on the ballot because of Parker’s financial backing. Once it gets an official title and summary from the attorney general’s office, backers will have 180 days to gather roughly 366,000 valid signatures from California voters to qualify the measure for the November 2016 ballot.

AUMAs main rival appears to be the Control, Regulate and Tax Cannabis Act of 2016, submitted by the California Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform, also known as ReformCA. But according to published reports, a majority of coalition board members have thrown their support behind AUMA.

“There are so many different legalization initiatives because there are so many egos involved in getting a marijuana legalization initiative passed in California,” said Lanny Swerdlow, a pro-marijuana activist from the Riverside County desert community of Whitewater.

“Efforts to bring everyone to the table to find common ground and draft a single initiative failed as the proponents of all but one of the initiatives refused to attend,” he said.

‘WE SHOULD WIN IT’

To satisfy skeptics, AUMA supporters recently changed the measure to prevent the marketing of marijuana to children and block big business from monopolizing the marijuana market.

“This measure now includes even more protections for children, workers, small business, and local governments while ensuring strict prohibitions on marketing to kids and monopoly practices,” proponent Donald Lyman told The San Francisco Chronicle.

Swerdlow said that while the Parker-backed initiative isn’t perfect, he’ll most likely support whatever gets on the ballot. It’s important for the Democratic Party to back a ballot measure and not stand on the sidelines like it did with Prop. 19, said Swerdlow, who founded the Brownie Mary Democratic Club of Riverside County.

“It is our election to lose,” he said. “We should win it. But if we don’t do it right, we will lose it.”

Paul Chabot, a Republican congressional candidate from Rancho Cucamonga, is confident voters will reject any measure to legalize marijuana.

The reason Colorado and Washington state legalized marijuana is because there was no organized opposition, said Chabot, founder of the Coalition for a Drug Free California.

“Here in California, we’ve been organized for well over a decade,” he said.

The fate of a legalization ballot measure could depend on how well-funded and organized the opposition is, Pitney said.

“All things being equal, it is easier to beat a ballot measure than to pass it,” he said. “If foes can find a reasonable hook for creating doubt, and if they can drive home their message in ads, then they could drive down support.”

15 PERCENT TAX

As currently written, AUMA would permit recreational marijuana use by those 21 and older. Marijuana users of legal age could possess up to 28.5 grams of marijuana and grow up to six marijuana plants in their homes.

Retail marijuana sales would be taxed at a 15 percent rate, with the money going to a special fund to pay for substance abuse treatment, drug abuse prevention programs and other specified aims.

A state legislative analysis estimated the act could reduce law enforcement costs by tens of millions to more than $100 million a year while providing hundreds of millions to more than $1 billion a year in tax revenue.

The act imposes a number of limits on where marijuana can be smoked and who can sell it. For example, marijuana businesses cannot be within 600 feet of schools and places where children gather, and merchants who sell alcohol and tobacco cannot sell marijuana as well.

The act allows for those convicted of offenses that would not have been crimes if the act were in place to be eligible for resentencing. Penalties for driving a car while impaired by marijuana would remain in effect.

Local governments would have the power to regulate non-medical marijuana businesses. And localities could ban non-medical marijuana businesses if a majority of residents vote to do so.

With the exception of a handful of cities in the Coachella Valley, medical marijuana dispensaries are not allowed in Riverside County’s cities. In a case that started in Riverside, the California Supreme Court in 2013 upheld the right of cities to ban dispensaries, and Riverside voters in June rejected a measure that would have allowed up to 10 dispensaries in commercial and industrial zones.

Earlier this year, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors enacted new regulations to crack down on large-scale marijuana grows in unincorporated communities. Supervisor Kevin Jeffries, who spearheaded the new rules, wonders what will happen to neighborhoods if recreational marijuana is legalized.

“There’s a lot of little complexities out there that are going to have to be ironed out,” he said. “I really hope they don’t throw something out there that’s going to be a disaster for California and take years to figure out.”

Jeff Horseman got into journalism because he liked to write and stunk at math. He grew up in Vermont and he honed his interviewing skills as a supermarket cashier by asking Bernie Sanders “Paper or plastic?” After graduating from Syracuse University in 1999, Jeff began his journalistic odyssey at The Watertown Daily Times in upstate New York, where he impressed then-U.S. Senate candidate Hillary Clinton so much she called him “John” at the end of an interview. From there, he went to Annapolis, Maryland, where he covered city, county and state government at The Capital newspaper before love and the quest for snowless winters took him in 2007 to Southern California, where he started out covering Temecula for The Press-Enterprise. Today, Jeff writes about Riverside County government and regional politics. Along the way, Jeff has covered wildfires, a tropical storm, 9/11 and the Dec. 2 terror attack in San Bernardino. If you have a question or story idea about politics or the inner workings of government, please let Jeff know. He’ll do his best to answer, even if it involves a little math.

Join the Conversation

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments, we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

If you see comments that you find offensive, please use the “Flag as Inappropriate” feature by hovering over the right side of the post, and pulling down on the arrow that appears. Or, contact our editors by emailing moderator@scng.com.